Ceremony honors Lockport soldier slain in WWI

Sunday

Nov 8, 2009 at 12:44 AM

Perry Pitre South Lafourche Correspondent

LOCKPORT — On June 20, 1917, the Lafourche Comet brought the news that the terrible toll of the Great War, which claimed the lives of millions of soldiers from nearly two dozen countries, had come home. “Lafourche sustained the loss of one of her sons to fight for liberty and justice. Private Henry Robertson, having been killed in action on June 7, he being 25 years of age,” the paper reported.Robertson, of Lockport, was the first Lafourche resident to die in action in World War I. Killed by an artillery shell in the Battle of the Somme, Robertson was buried nearby, as was the custom then, where he remained until 1921, when the American Graves Registration Service recommended that his body be released for shipment home to south Lafourche.The final destination was Lockport, but exactly where was a matter of some conjecture for years. Robertson’s grave had no marker, and for awhile, no one was really sure where it was. All that changed Saturday in a ceremony at Lockport’s American Legion Post 83 hall, which was named for Robertson. A marker bearing Robertson’s name and his service to his country were commemorated before family members and numerous veterans in a ceremony marked by a traditional rifle volley and full military honors. “Hang on, my brother,” master of ceremonies and Legion member Forest Travirca said. “You will be properly memorialized today as you weren’t then.” The effort to locate and properly mark Robertson’s grave has been an on-going project for Post 83.“We’ve been hunting this up for the last 20 years,” Post Commander Alvin Martin said. “We were named after him, because we knew he had been killed in World War I, but we couldn’t even get any information on where he was buried. ... The Army had a record, and the French had a record, but they had him in two different tombs. So we put some ads in the paper, and we found a bunch of his nieces, and they came forward and told us exactly where he was at.” Robertson was buried in Holy Savior Cemetery in a family grave that did not have his name on it. “It’s where my dad is buried. It’s the family plot,” said Bonnie Robertson Ulrich, daughter of Robertson’s younger brother Harry. “Uncle Henry was killed in France, and he was buried in France, but my grandfather, John Robertson, asked for his remains to come back. So they put him in the family tomb, but it was so long ago. The only grave marker at the tomb right now is my dad’s.” Ulrich, along with sisters Betty Robertson Ulrich and Judy Robertson Breaux and cousin Elizabeth Dardar, daughter of Henry’s brother Claude, accepted a flag at the end of the ceremony, which they will leave to be displayed at the Legion hall. “It just gives me the chills every time we talk about it,” Ulrich said. “It’s someone we didn’t know growing up. My dad was only five when Uncle Henry died. We’ve found out so much of the history of our family. It’s really an honor for them to do this for him.” At the ceremony, one man wore a baseball cap inscribed with “All gave some. Some gave all.” Henry Robertson gave all, and now, his fellow veterans have given just a little bit back.